Music Timeline: Cultural Resource or Ad for Google Play?

Google’s Music Timeline is one of the best visualizations of our cultural soundtrack’s evolution over the past 60 yrs http://t.co/u6PQiT09sL

Tom Uytterhoeven‘s insight:

"Our cultural soundtrack", the PR-talk says. And that’s true: music can really convey the spirit of a certain period. But when you check out this timeline, you will notice that it’s all about promoting Google Play. So in the end, the competitive environment for songs, the selective force that determines whether they will be transmitted to next generations and/or new populations of human carriers, is the economy. What sells, and what not has no doubt been the determinative factor in deciding which music became part of this timeline, and which was left out. I’m not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, but I’m curious whether this also applies to other aspects of culture. Maybe Lyotard was right, and the last grand narrative standing is the economy… Or is it the other way around, and is what sells being determined by what we like, because it has some profound appeal to us?

A collective of bibliophiles talking about books. Book Fox (vulpes libris): small bibliovorous mammal of overactive imagination and uncommonly large bookshop expenses. Habitat: anywhere the rustle of pages can be heard.